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Monday, October 21, 2013

Evolution Is Irrelevant to Michael Egnor

The title of this post suggest a story that's about as interesting as the proverbial "Dog Bites Man" story [see Man Bites Dog]. Nevertheless, from time to time it is amusing to see how the creationist mind works.

Evolution is irrelevant to biochemistry and molecular biology. Biochemistry and molecular biology are, of course, quite important in developing an understanding of evolutionary history. Our understanding of evolutionary history is dependent (to a large degree) on biochemistry and molecular biology. To assert the reverse dependence is to reason in a circle.

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Evolutionary inferences, whether good stories or bad, are irrelevant to research in biochemistry and molecular biology. Much if not most research in biochemistry and molecular biology is conducted in medical schools, which don't teach evolutionary biology and don't have departments of evolutionary biology.

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Biochemistry and molecular biology might be used to infer common evolutionary ancestry (common design is also a reasonable inference). Inference to evolutionary ancestry based on biochemistry and molecular biology can't then contribute to research in biochemistry and molecular biology, because, as noted above, that would be to reason in a circle.

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Diseases have proximate and evolutionary causes. Biochemists and molecular biologists study proximate causes. Evolutionary biologists make up evolutionary stories based on research on the proximate causes. The contribution is one-directional.

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Similarity between humans and other organisms is established by biochemistry, molecular biology, physiology, anatomy, etc. Based on similarities, evolutionary inferences are conjured by evolutionary biologists. If biochemists etc. claimed that evolutionary stories were essential to their work, they would be... reasoning in a circle. But of course they don't actually claim that. They just pay homage to evolution, to keep Darwinists off their back.

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"Related" is determined by biochemistry and molecular biology. Evolutionary stories about relatedness are derived from biochemical and molecular similarities. Therefore, evolution is informed by, but does not inform, biochemistry and molecular biology.

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The absurd circular claims of evolution's indispensability to the biological disciplines -- the very sciences on which evolutionary biology feeds -- is just more evidence that Darwinism's narrative gloss is wearing so thin that evolution needs a telethon every now and then to make it even seem relevant.

I swear I'm not making this up. Go on over to Evolution News & Views (sic) and see for yourself.

At least Dr. Egnor has done us a favor. Since he is a physician, he must have taken a biochemistry course at some point in his life. It is plainly obvious that the course did not include much about evolution. Thus, Dr. Egnor is inadvertently demonstrating that biochemistry should be taught as a concept-driven course and that evolution should be one of the fundamental concepts. Otherwise, we end up with doctors that are as ignorant of evolution as Michael Egnor.

Many physicians don't think they use evolution in their day-to-day work. But they know that many of the medications they use are extensively tested in animals before they are tried on humans. They casually accept that those tests are relevant because they know that the anatomy, physiology and biochemistry of those animals have similarity to ours. They would be distressed if the tests were on jellyfish -- they are happier if the tests are on mammals.

So they are using evolution regularly, they just don't think of it that way.

Egnor tries to get out of this by arguing that it is the biochemical similarity that is being used, and the inferences of relatedness are secondary to that. But the evidence for common descent is that similar inferences of relationship are found when we look at different aspects of biochemistry (or physiology, or anatomy). So inferences that mice are mammals can be made from features of the skull, and then give us reassurance that their kidney physiology will be closer to ours than will the kidney physiology of a fish or a salamander.

Physicians don't think they use evolution because they don't!Tests are animals are not evidence of evolution at work because the tests work for human results. why would it be?Inferences of relatedness are secondary.Its not evidence for common descent if aother options explain it also.A creator with common basic designs would also use like Dna for like needs.Thats what I would do! What else? Why not a single computer programe.God is the original programmer as opposed to a artist flowing with the moment. As in physics so in biology.Therefore its only a line of reasoning to extrapolate back present Dna etc facts of biology to draw trees of descent of ancient biology.Even if true it would still just be reasoning and not evidenced science.

Similarity is just evidence of similarity. Its not evidence, genetic, biology, etc, of common descent. Not evidence . Just a hunch. A wrong hunch.Where is the molecular evidence that molecular likeness is evidence of descent origins??I think Dr Egnor is asking this if less articulate. He's a doctor.

Which is why the DNA of all species is exactly identical with no variation beyond that absolutely necessary for structural differences.

What's that? That's actually not true, that there are many DNA differences besides those creating structural differences? So there actually isn't a "single computer program"? And these differences are time-based, exactly what we would expect to find as a result of random mutation over time?

Well, that just means God has a helluva sense of humor, making us think everything evolved when he actually designed it! Right, Robert?

Many doctors will be prescribing HAART for HIV/AIDS without realising it is based on evolutionary considerations (the probability of three independent mutations in three mechanistic ally different systems occurring simultaneously) to lower the incidence of resistance, or that the same point underlies the push for dual therapy in malaria, or the rise of chemotherapy resistance in cancer

Otherwise, we end up with doctors that are as ignorant of evolution as Michael Egnor.

Thus explaining, in part, the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Perhaps doctors trained in evolutionary theory would have anticipated the effects of over-prescription much earlier and been much more cautious in their use of the drugs.

What Dr Egnor said was well reasoned and right.One must pat attention to the logic here. Its a closer math on the anatomy of error in evolutionary thinking.There is no contradiction in what he said.

It all com,es down to that CONCLUSIONS about common descent and so evolutionary process behind that are in NO way demonstrated by molecular studies of today.Its all just extrapolation backwards lines of reasoning.Its not scientific investigation that comes to the conclusions.Truly evolutionism uses lines of reasoning in place of what they say, sincerely, is scientific investigation on genetics or biology etc.Dr Egnor made great points here. perhaps just better articulation, my problem too, needs to be worked on.However what he says is probably the future doctrine on WHY evolutionism escaped dismissal by the scientific community.

Biochemistry doesn't need any evolutionary contribution when trying to master the subject. Its just memorizing more un needed material.

Many new insights into human biochemistry and gene function are gleaned by studies in mice and other animals. This is only possible due to shared biochemistry as a result of shared ancestry. The ever-growing library of sequenced genomes is only underscoring this fact. It's so unfortunate to have doctors like Egnor who are so hopelessly ignorant.

He's not ignorant and thats a hard accusation if time proves him right.Its not ONLY possible that shared ancestry equals shared biochemistry.Thats just the point.Ots a another and historic option that like biochemistry comes from a like creator making like design for biological life.Why not?Thats what I would do if I was God !It would be that way also.

anyways its just a line of reasoning to say what you said.its not backed up by scientific evidence.its just a hunch.

Laurence A. Moran

Larry Moran is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. You can contact him by looking up his email address on the University of Toronto website.

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Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake.
Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory.
Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.
Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat.
Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is TrueI once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000
It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma
One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick
There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins
Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod
The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.